Hardware & signal path
Cue mix
The cue mix knob sets the balance in your headphones between the cued channel and the master output. Fully one way you hear only the track you are lining up; fully the other, only what the room is hearing.
In practice
Sit near the middle and let the room push you towards cue — the master is already reaching your ears.
Set it before the first transition rather than during one. If you are struggling to hear drift, the fix is usually to move towards cue rather than to turn the headphones up, because the problem is proportion, not level. Some mixers replace the knob with a split-cue switch, which puts each signal in a different ear instead of mixing them — a different solution to the same problem, and often the better one in a loud booth. Whichever you have, keep the headphone volume conservative: the booth monitor is doing more work than you think, and a set played at maximum headphone level is a hearing decision, not a mixing one.
Near the middle
The usual position
Towards cue
What a loud booth needs
Proportion, not volume
What to change first
Where these come from: Monitoring practice on standard mixer layouts, not catalog figures. For what we can measure, see what the cue is for.
Why it matters
Beatmatching by ear needs both signals at once, and this knob is what decides in what proportion. Too far towards cue and you cannot hear the drift against the record that is playing; too far towards master and the incoming track disappears under it.
Where you set it is mostly a function of how loud the booth is. A quiet room lets you sit near the middle; a loud one pushes you towards cue, because the master is already arriving through the monitor and the walls.
Frequently asked
Where should the cue mix knob be set?+
Near the middle for most beatmatching, so you hear the incoming track against the one playing. Move towards cue when the booth is loud enough that the master is already reaching you.
Why can I not hear the beats drifting apart?+
Usually because one signal is dominating the other. Adjust the balance towards the quieter one rather than turning the headphones up — the issue is proportion, not level.
Is cue mix the same as split cue?+
No. Cue mix blends the two signals into both ears; split cue puts one in each ear in mono. They solve the same problem in different ways, and split cue works better in a loud room.
Related terms
Pre-fade listen
Pre-fade listen sends a channel to your headphones before its fader is up, so you hear the next track while the room hears only what is already playing. It is what the cue button on every mixer does.
Split cue
Split cue makes the headphones mono and sends the cued channel to one ear and the master to the other. You lose the stereo image and gain clean separation between the track you are cueing and the one playing.
Booth monitor
The booth monitor is the speaker pointed at the DJ, fed from its own output with its own level control. It is separate from the master, so turning it up changes what you hear and nothing the room hears.
Beatmatching
Beatmatching is lining up two tracks so their beats land together — matching the tempo, then nudging the phase until the kicks coincide. It is the base skill every other mixing technique sits on top of.
Explore: Pre-fade listen · Mixing guides · BPM tapper · All DJ terms